Students in the College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) are reviving the livestock judging team for the 2026 season. Coach Tainter and assistant coach Quinna Molden hosted a fundraiser dance on Nov. 13, 2025, and hope to use the funds of the event to support team travel and help reestablish the program.
Emerson Hovson, a sophomore in the College of ACES, explained that the ACES college came together in a way that she hadn’t seen before to make the event possible.
“We’ve been lucky to have people that are willing to help us out and really help promote us and get us to where we are,” Hovson said.
In the college of ACES, Animal and Range Sciences, initially, Hovson came up with the dance to raise funds. She discussed students’ exposure in the career field.
“Livestock judging is a really cool thing. So basically, it’s kind of another segment of livestock showing industry, where we get to be judges as youth and as collegiate competitors,” Hovson said.
The team evaluates different classes of cattle, lambs, goats, and swine based on their production and marketability. Hovson elaborated on the competition structure, explaining that each class has four animals, and participants rank them from best to worst.
“We’ll rank them and turn those in, and there’s a scoring system, and you can get, you know, a certain amount of points for how well you rank them,” Hovson explained.
The competition season starts in Denver, CO, at the National Western livestock show January and ends in December 2026 at Louisville, KY. The Livestock Judging Team has trained in anticipation for the oncoming season.
“Our team that will be competing this year-, we started practicing last year, so we’ve been at this for a year now, and we’re excited to get on the road and be able to actually compete, which is super fun,” Hovson stated.
Hovson encouraged NMSU students who are interested in the college of ACES in recruitment and education that they can get scholarships to judge.
Assistant coach Molden offered the program to incoming NMSU students and underclassmen.
“You don’t necessarily have to be an Ag. major or have a huge livestock background to be able to do it. We’ll teach you, so doors are open to anybody,” Molden said.
